


a fine life

by ProtoDan



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Backstory, Blood Loss, Gen, Lamb is chill but Wolf's an asshole and no one is surprised, Suicide Attempt, Viktor has the shittiest coping mechanisms, seriously so much blood loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:58:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoDan/pseuds/ProtoDan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Viktor closes his eyes for the last time, his only regret is that he knows he will not be remembered as a pioneer, but as a lunatic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a fine life

Failure trickles through his fingers, blooming out and staining everything it touches.

A miscalculation. That's all. After all this time, all he's been through, all he's done, and this is how his life ends--alone, disgraced, from a misjudged incision. Viktor laughs, laughs until he can't breathe, laughs until he coughs blood and the room spins and he's teetering from his seat and he hits the floor first with his shoulder and then with his skull and the side of his head starts to bleed too.

He doesn't care. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of his diseased mind, he had hoped for this. With each procedure, each replacement, Viktor had grown more and more daring, his hatred--of the world, of what it had done to him, of himself--driving him closer to the event horizon at which he now stands.

In a way, it's a relief. No more will he have to live with the slander, the pain. Viktor peels his hand away from the deep gouge in his abdomen, fascinated by the way his blood glistens on his palm.

It will all be over soon. Ten minutes, by his estimate. A long, painful way to die, to be sure, but far from the worst he can imagine. It's fitting, at least, that he will breathe his last in the same house that killed his parents.

The strength has already started to fade from his muscles. Were his eyes still made of flesh, he's sure that his vision would be fading in and out, but he watches his blood spill out onto the floor with perfect clarity, and he laughs to himself.

Who will find him, he wonders? And when? Will it be in a week's time, when his corpse is bloated and rotten, but they can still identify it as his? A month? A year? Never? Will news spread across the city of the deluded doctor, bled out in his lab after another failed attempt at changing the world? Will everyone forget his name and move on?

As Viktor closes his eyes for the last time, his only regret is that he knows he will not be remembered as a pioneer, but as a lunatic. He almost, almost wishes that he had staunched the bleeding, stitched up the wound, but--no, it's better this way. No one outside these walls cares whether he lives or dies, and in a minute or two, he won't care anymore.

The room is cold. His heartbeat quickens, but all that accomplishes is pushing the blood out of his body faster. Viktor tries to laugh at his flawed biology and its pathetic attempts to keep itself alive, but all he manages is a quiet wheeze and a short gasp. His consciousness seems to blur at the edges.

Not long now... not long...

The room is bitterly cold now, unnaturally so, as if a winter storm had rushed through the lab and frozen everything. He can hear, as if from only across the room, the sound of a woman humming. Viktor frowns, confused, and cracks one eye open.

A black fog surrounds him, broken only by a pair of glowing, unnaturally blue eyes mere centimeters from his face. Both of his own eyes fly open now, and Viktor shoves himself back in shock, his weakness forgotten. A deep, rumbling laugh echoes through the lab.

The fog splits below those bright azure eyes, revealing a gaping maw full of black teeth enclosed around a throat that seems to contain a galaxy. And from it, comes a voice--low, coarse, and very, very old. " _ **It's surprised to see us,**_   _ **little lamb.**_ " 

Viktor decides immediately that he must be hallucinating. He hit his head on the floor, he's delirious from blood loss, and this is his mind's last attempt to make sense of its own final moments. The spirit-- _mirage_ \--in front of him laughs again. 

" _Many are, even when they seek us themselves,_ " says a second voice, calm, gentle--almost maternal. A flicker of white in Viktor's periphery causes him to tear his gaze away from the blue eyes in the dark, and he sees a pale figure, covered in wool, wide blue eyes unblinking. 

This is certainly a hallucination. There's no other explanation. Any second now, his consciousness will flicker out for good, and he will fall into the black relief of oblivion.

The pale figure's head turns, ovine ears falling down its shoulders. " _It does not understand, dear wolf._ " That, then, is where the more feminine voice is coming from. Not that it particularly matters, but at least it satisfies Viktor's last curiosity. " _It is not yet time,_ " she says, stepping forward. Slender, soft fingers reach out, touching Viktor's bleeding chest. His lifeblood soaks into her wool, but she doesn't seem to notice. " _There is more yet to your story. This is but a chapter._ "

" _ **You'll see us again soon, metal man,**_ " says the other--the wolf, he supposes. " _ **But for now--**_ "

" _\--live another day,_ " finishes the lamb. A strange warmth spreads from her hand through his body, racing through what blood remains. 

A wash of calm overcomes Viktor, and he sags under the lamb's touch, feeling as if he could sleep for days. He looks down at her fingers, and sees the wound start to seal itself around the metal cord embedded in his abdomen. He isn't even surprised anymore. The wolf shifts, floating in lazy circles around him, the glimmer of his eyes seeming almost curious now. 

" _ **Why won't it speak, little lamb?**_ "

" _He thinks we are a dream, dear wolf,_ " says the lamb. She laughs, a startlingly bright sound, ears swinging as she shakes her head. " _He will learn, in time._ "

The wolf tilts his head, the fog shifting around him. " ** _I thought this one was clever. How can clever prey be stupid?_** "

" _In becoming wise, mankind became foolish. They doubt, and they hope they can outsmart us._ "

Viktor watches the exchange in weary silence, bemused but without the energy to question what's happening to him. The exhaustion seeping into his bones has changed--he no longer feels the fatigue of losing consciousness, but rather the dull haze of simple sleepiness. He blinks, slowly, and tries to hold back a yawn.

The lamb touches his chest again, just over his heart. " _Yes,_ " she says gently. Her other hand touches the side of his head, brushing his hair away from the wound there even as he feels it sealing. " _Rest. Rest, and wake, and live._ " She hums, a simple and mournful tune, both a lullaby and a dirge.

How can he not obey? Viktor's eyes slip shut, and he fades into a dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

 

Viktor rises with the sun, tired but alive. He stares down his own body, wondering at the fresh scab that cuts across his abdomen. Thickly, as if through a cloud of smoke, he remembers cutting wrong. He remembers falling, hitting his head. He remembers blood--so much blood. There, on the floor around him, he can see the evidence of all that had transpired: a massive pool of now-dried blood, caked on the floor and on what little clothes he wore during the operation. The whole room is tinged with the sweet, coppery smell of it.

How had he survived losing so much? He should be dead twice over. Viktor gingerly touches the scab with just the tips of his fingers, baffled. There are no sutures sealing the wound, and he doesn't remember so much as trying to staunch the bleeding. 

Distantly, he remembers the sound of a woman humming. _Rest, and wake, and live._  


Some things, Viktor supposes, he may never understand. He pulls himself to his feet, mechanical joints protesting faintly, and looks out the window through the smog outside.

A new day comes. And with it, something of a second chance. He will not die in disgrace.

Not here. Not yet.


End file.
